Zcash’s NU7 network upgrade is live on the public testnet, cutting the time between blocks from 75 seconds to 25.
It activated at block 4,465,026, ahead of schedule. For users, the change shows up as faster confirmations. Three confirmations, a common threshold for treating a payment as settled, would take about 75 seconds instead of roughly 225.
What NU7 changes
Faster blocks would normally mean more new ZEC created. NU7 avoids that by cutting the block reward to a third, so the total issuance schedule stays where it was, halvings included.
Fees change too. Miners will receive 40% of transaction fees, with the remaining 60% held in a reserve to fund future mining rewards.
The upgrade also switches off transactions in Sprout, Zcash’s oldest privacy system. Anyone still holding funds there needs to move them before NU7 reaches mainnet to keep access.
Who built it
Two separate node implementations are ready for testing. Zakura released its version on 1 October, and the Zcash Foundation published a test version of its Zebra node a day later.
What comes next
The upgrade is not on mainnet yet. A decision on mainnet activation is due on 20 October, with a target activation date of 5 November.
ZEC trades at about $1,347, ranked tenth by market value at around $22.9 billion. It is down roughly 5% over the past week, so the upgrade has not yet moved the price.
